Building Blog application using Django

In this post we will build a Todo application using Django, before going through this application,

Let us create a directory to keep your code segregated

$ mkdir todo
$ cd todo

You need to have python and virtual environment installed

sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo apt-get install python3-venv

Second let us create virtual environment

python3 -m venv venvtodo

Before we start with actual django project, we need to activate project creation

 source venv/bin/activate

for windows use following command

venvtodo\Scripts\activate.bat

Install django

pip3 install Django

If you want to install specific version of Django, you can use following command

pip3 install Django==4.0.2

Start Project

django-admin startproject todo
cd todo
python3 manage.py runserver

if you want to run Django on differnt port

python manage.py runserver 9000

You will see following output on screen

python manage.py runserver
Watching for file changes with StatReloader
Performing system checks...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).

You have 18 unapplied migration(s). Your project may not work properly until you apply the migrations for app(s): admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions.
Run 'python manage.py migrate' to apply them.
February 27, 2022 - 11:07:13
Django version 4.0.2, using settings 'todoapp.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CTRL-BREAK

and following will be visible in browser

Django project is split into apps. Each app handles specific tasks or function. Let us create a application for managing our todo list.

python3 manage.py startapp todoapp

Once app is created, it needs to be registered in settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'todoapp',
]

urls.py is not created inside app directory, we need to create todoapp\urls.py manually.

from django.urls import path
from . import views

app_name = 'todoapp'
urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),  
]

To have application urls accessible from main project, we need to add this urls.py with main project

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import include, path # Add include here

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('todo/', include('todoapp.urls')),# Add this line
]

Before doing further changes let us create sample view in todoapp/views.py we will edit this file later for more details but we need to create this view to avoid any error while running intermediate command.

from django.shortcuts import render, get_object_or_404, redirect

def index(request):
    context = "This is coming from view"
    return render(request, 'todo/index.html',{'context':context})  

create a tolder templates inside todoapp folder. Create subfolder todo inside templates folder.

You might be thinking why we need todo folder again inside templates folder. Well, when you run runstatic command, django will consolidate all templates, css and js files in projectwide central static folder. If you have multiple apps in your django project, there is possibility that template names may be common across projects e.g. index.html

Now when you run django project using python3 manage.py runserver you will see following error.

This is because we have not yet handled our base url, we have created an application which is server at /todo. If you keep this blank, you application will be server from base url.

Creating Model

from django.db import models
from django.utils import timezone

STATUS_CHOICES = (
    ('In progress','In progress'),
    ('On Hold', 'On Hold'),
    ('Cancelled','Cancelled'),
    ('Completed','Completed'),
)

# Create your models here.
class Task(models.Model):
    task_id         = models.AutoField(primary_key=True)
    title           = models.CharField(max_length=350)
    date_created    = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)
    status          = models.CharField(max_length=15, choices=STATUS_CHOICES, default='In progress')
    date_completed  = models.DateTimeField(null=True, blank=True)

    def __str__(self):
        return self.title

Once models.py file has been updated, you need to run makemigrations and migrate commandas as shown below.

python3 manage.py makemigrations
Migrations for 'todoapp':
  todoapp\migrations\0001_initial.py
    - Create model Task

python3 manage.py migrate
Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions, todoapp
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0002_logentry_remove_auto_add... OK
  Applying admin.0003_logentry_add_action_flag_choices... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0009_alter_user_last_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0010_alter_group_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0011_update_proxy_permissions... OK
  Applying auth.0012_alter_user_first_name_max_length... OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial... OK
  Applying todoapp.0001_initial... OK

You also need to create superuser.

python3 manage.py createsuperuser

You can login to http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin by using the ID created in previous command. To ensure the model created is visible to you, you need to add this model in admin.py in the todoapp\admin.py

from django.contrib import admin
from .models import Task
# Register your models here.

admin.site.register(Task)

Once done, your admin screen will look like this.

Let us manually add tasks from admin screen.

Now we need to display these tasks templates\todo\index.html

<h1> Task List</h1>
<ul>
{% for task in task_list %}
  <li><a href="details/{{task.task_id}}"><p>Task Name : {{task.title}} </p></a></li>
{% endfor %}
</ul>

Let us also add details page to display task details templates\todo\details.html

<h1> Task Details</h1>

<p>Task id : {{task.task_id}} </p>
<p>Task Title : {{task.title}} </p>
<p>Task Date Created : {{task.date_created}} </p>
<p>Task Status : {{task.status}} </p>

update \todo\views.py

def details(request, task_id):
    task = get_object_or_404(Task, task_id=task_id)
    return render(request, 'todo/details.html',{'task':task})

updated todoapp\urls.py

from django.urls import path
from . import views

app_name = 'todo'
urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.index, name='index'),
    path('details/<task_id>/', views.details, name='details'), #added this line
]

Once these changes are done, you can run the application and then can see more details when you click on hyperlink. Please note the change in url and task_id in url.

Hope this was helpful. Please let me know your feedback.